Category: The Meeting Place Online Discussion

A Call for Repentance: An Open Letter from Palestinian Christians to Western Church Leaders and Theologians 20 October 2023 “Learn to do right; seek justice; defend the oppressed” (Isa 1:17). We, at the undersigned Palestinian Christian institutions and grassroots movements, grieve and lament the renewed cycle of violence in our land. As we were about…

In the Hebrew Scriptures there are two (at least) contrasting images of what Israel could be.  The first is in chapter 23 of the Book of Exodus:                                                                                                         I will send swarms of hornets in front of you, which shall drive out the Hivites, the Canaanites, and the Hittites from before you. I will not drive them…

In his book “Value(s): Building a Better World for all” (published by William Collin in 2021, and in paperback in 2022), Mark Carney, the former Governor of the Bank of England, argues that “the embrace of markets and their ‘subjective’ valuations has led to a society that has been robbed of its capacity to express…

The collapse of the Soviet system in 1990 created a vacuum filled with illusions of Western “victory”.  “Liberal democracy” (with free-market capitalism) was now “the only game in town”.  The Russian economy was re-organised under Yegor Gaidar (and western “support”), with drastic consequences, including oligarchs buying up formerly state-owned industries.  But the present century has…

Rishi Sunak’s proposal to grant more licenses for oil and gas development, in the light of all the debate about Global Warming and Fossil Fuels, was our first topic of discussion.  The world demand for oil and gas is higher now than it was half a century ago-  production was nearly 2.5 million tons in…

One of the Kirchentag Bible studies asked “When is the Kingdom of God coming?” (Luke 17:20).    Does God work only through people, or in other ways?  (At least we should perhaps be grateful it is not only through us as members of the Church!).  In the Gospel of Thomas Jesus says that the Kingdom is…

These are the sessions we attended- a small selection of the many available in the Kirchentag (Church Congress). These Protestant meetings happen every two years, alternating with Catholic Congresses, with joint ecumenical meetings every few years. ACT OF REMEMBRANCE, Wednesday 14.00 to 15.00  at the Charterhouse Tower Ten murders were committed between September 2000 and April…

Artificial Intelligence (AI) had been in the news every morning before the First Thursday.                             Monday:  AI scans were used at Royal Marsden Hospital and Imperial College- algorithms used to diagnose cancer had proved super-effective, more efficient than any current methods.                                                                                                                                                         Tuesday:  Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather” of AI quits Google and warns of its danger-…

“For where your Treasure is….”- a summary of our discussions on “What does the Bible say about Wealth?”: Read More >>